Matthew-Leigh
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The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Orbitron: Revolution
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Matthew Leigh of Canada's Firebase Industries details the details behind Orbitron: Revolution, a gorgeous space shmup for XBLIG and PC. What's your game called and what's it about?Orbitron: Revolution. Originally it was called Orbital, but looking online it seemed as though 10 other games were called that. Orbitron was settled on because it sounded like something you would find in a smoky 1980s arcade. Then two days before the Dream Build Play 2011 competition we thought we would add a second title and for about three minutes it was going to be called Orbitron: Combat Revolved.The game has the player in the role of a defense fighter, fending off an invasion of angry robots who are bent on destroying the Orbitron Power Station. Guardian Mode is really the core of the game and is a bit of a action/shmup/tower-defense mashup. You have to stop evil laser-drilling robots from attacking and destroying the four sector ports located around the ring. When three of the four ports are destroyed the ring explodes!Orbitron: Revolution was a semi-finalist in the Dream Build Play 2011 competition -- how encouraging was that for Firebase Industries?The first trailer we did as a requirement to get into Dream Build Play 2011 really exploded on Youtube. We got 25,000 views or something in only a couple days which is rare for an XBLIG title. So after that we were feeling pretty good about that game and where it could go. Getting the semi-finalist spot was fantastic as well and I hope it helped get the awareness of the game up!
